Nothing like being the de facto principal cellist in the absence of the first chair on the first day of orchestra… and not embarrassing myself. Go me!Yes, it was the first orchestra rehearsal of the season last night, and our principal cellist couldn’t make it. It’s entirely possible that the late notice caught her with a double-booking. Anyway, our new conductor graciously asked if I wanted to move into the first chair and I said, “Oh, no; I’m good right here, thanks.” So everyone else shuffled so as to be closer and the third chair moved up to sit first. And I discovered something: Even though we were sight reading, in general my rhythm and timing is more accurate. We all ran into problems with a badly printed copy of the music and nasty accidental-sown runs (oh, Beethoven, I love you but you’re a bastard, with your notation tricks of slurs across beats and those damn modulations within scale-like passages), but I was pretty reliable in entrances and so forth. I did lose my place more than I’d liked in the runs because everything was squished together, and I have trouble ignoring people who are playing the wrong thing at the wrong time to focus on my own technically correct stuff. Still, it was a good time, and bodes very, very well for the season. Also, yay for my intonation. Lessons and a new cello are working well.
And in related news, I can’t listen to the Schubert ‘Rosamunde’ theme without singing ‘Waltzing Matilda’ in my head. (Now you can’t either. Ha.)
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* Owls' Court: the main journal
